Our log house construction 2023/24 in Lower Saxony

Hi everyone! :)

After you luckily saved us from building a dark dwarf cave with your abundant feedback and we completely restarted from scratch in terms of the floor plan, we are finally ready: The construction start notification is with the building authority *cheers* So now we have to wait four weeks and then it could actually start.

Below are the final floor plans, elevations, and sections. Also included is the site plan of our house on our plot. Here is the link to our floor plan thread:

If there is interest, I could make a little "construction diary" from this thread here... Since we are not building turnkey with a general contractor, there will surely be some disasters that could have been avoided, but that somehow also belongs to it... :D We would definitely appreciate feedback and will certainly have one or the other question during the course of the construction where we will need your help... :)

A brief introduction to our project:

We (m37, f30 and little m6) dream of a cozy home and were lucky to get a plot through the city in a new development area in a neighboring village in May 2022. The brutal price rocket and material shortages almost made us give up, but in November we took a close look again at what we really want. The budget is limited, times are unpredictable, the interest rates of course much higher than we would like... But in the end it was clear: With a lot of own effort we still want to dare. Now or never again and if so, it should be something with a feel-good factor. Anyone who has read our floor plan thread knows: We will build a wooden house. The wall construction: inside 10.0x21.8 cm spruce planks – 20.0 cm cellulose blown insulation – 5.8 cm spruce paneling as exterior cladding = KfW40, that was important to us. The house has a continuous roof overhang of one meter. Roof insulation, visible roof structure and *unfortunately* according to the development plan only an allowed eaves height of 4.00 meters, which challenged us very much during the process as first-time builders... :( But we believe we have now found a solution in which our upper floor will still be reasonably usable despite the only 30 cm knee wall thanks to the south dormer for the children's bedrooms and the north side for the staircase.

Currently our plan looks as follows (in practice you can probably add 1-3 months everywhere :D):
Earthworks until the end of September (I do not have a fixed date for that yet), followed immediately by the foundation slab – both I am coordinating myself. Then the house builder arrives at the end of October and erects the entire house in 4-5 weeks (walls, ceilings, roof structure including insulation, windows, front door), so that we can largely take care of the entire interior finishing (electrical, sanitary, heating) ourselves in close cooperation with specialist companies. Then still missing are roof tiles and photovoltaics, screed work and flooring – nothing needs to be done to the interior walls, they remain natural. Everything related to the outside will come later and then to the extent that the budget (hopefully) still allows. We want to move in at Easter (yes, you can laugh now :p) but without ambitious goals you won't finish, besides we will have drawn a large loan amount very quickly, so the double burden will also be weighing on us.

In any case, it is already by far the most exciting, exhausting and nerve-racking project we have ever had – and unfortunately we are just at the very beginning :D

So now without carport and without bay window seat, but otherwise essentially as previously planned. Good, better a achievable goal than waiting for miracles to implement a design without any compromises.

the by far most exciting, exhausting and nerve-wracking project we have ever had

That is said by many people after building a house. I also think that is likely. Nevertheless, it is worth it :cool:

That is said by many people after building a house. I also consider it likely. Nevertheless, it's worth it :cool:

I really hope so o_O

We have been looking for an earthworks contractor with availability in September for weeks. The day before yesterday, I got a contact from a colleague, arranged an appointment at the site directly via WhatsApp for yesterday morning at 7:00. He was there at 6:43, I arrived at 6:51 – shortly after 7:00 everything was discussed. I received a verbal offer via voice message – a really very good price. I'm totally happy to finally get the earthworks and foundation slab appointments rolling to not delay the house manufacturer's delivery date; it really weighs heavy on my mind... When the first excavator starts rolling – and it really begins – phew. I think then I'll sit down with a camping chair and a cooler with a beer in front of me and take a deep breath first :D

Congratulations on the decision and the future implementation!

Regarding the untreated interior walls, I would recommend seriously considering oiling them once, preferably twice (this could also be done by a painter with experience using a spray gun). This keeps the wood lighter (does not darken as intensely and especially not as unevenly depending on the light incidence). Additionally, dirt can be removed much more easily (with a small child in the house, this would be a no-brainer for me :cool:)

I speak from my own current experience in the areas of solid wood ceiling (spruce/fir) as well as parquet flooring (oak, although this is rustic/dark) and long past experience with the usual 80s spruce wood wall and ceiling panels.

Regarding earthworks: Due to insufficiently precise planning by the earthworks contractor, we had significantly more excavation, which led to considerable discrepancies between the quote and the invoice. Please make sure that as much excavation as possible remains on the property and is distributed (used for terrain modeling if possible).